In the run-up to the Jan. 14 presidential and legislative elections, an overseas Taiwanese group urged international bodies, governments and non-government al organizations to send observers to Taiwan to “observe, ensure and certify” a free election and transfer of power.
“We urge that the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, Japan, other concerned governments and non-governmental organizations send observers to [the election in] Taiwan,” the Greater New York Region Overseas Taiwanese Pen Club said in a statement.
The group recently issued an urgent declaration on the election, in which it urged “a peaceful transfer or maintenance of government power” after the election and “condemned any attempts at creating social and political upheavals that will provide pretexts for Chinese political and military interventions.”
“We urge that the [presidential and legislative] elections of Jan. 14, 2012, be truly free and independent. We strongly oppose any outside interference and threats, especially those from China,” the statement said.
Journalists from foreign media outlets and international academics interested in cross-strait relations and democracy are gearing up to report on or observe the first ever combined top-level elections in the country, government officials said yesterday.
According to the Government Information Office (GIO), between 500 and 600 foreign journalists have signed up to cover the event, fewer than the presidential election four years ago, but more are expected to submit their registration requests after the New Year holiday.
Owing to budget constraints, the number of foreign reporters and academics on election observation missions sponsored by the government is lower than in the past, said a GIO official who wished to remain anonymous.
However, he said he expected many academics would be -involved in the election at their own expense.
At the invitation of various government and affiliated agencies, the Association of Asian Election Authorities, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal of Guatemala and the Washington-based Community of Democracies, a global intergovernmental coalition of democratic countries, will observe the election first hand, along with other US think tank leaders, including Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former director of the American Institute in Taiwan, and Alan Romberg, director of the East Asia program at Stimson and a former US Department of State official.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching